Best Pickup line in the church "God told me your were the one."

If a member of the opposite sex offers you that statement, I encourage you to thank them and promptly run in the opposite direction.

Somewhere, someone who was very in tune to with the Lords voice and the prompting of the Holy Spirit did in fact hear the voice of God say, “she is the one” but in our over zealous, over spiritualized church today, horny youth are running around declaring to the most attractive person they can find, “God told me you are the one.”

Do I disagree that God works this way? No. One of my most respected college professors has a story similar to this. He was speaking at a worship/prayer service in his younger days and his now wife was the young woman playing piano during the prayer portion of the service. He was running around the room ministering in prayer to people and his wife sensed the Lord tell her “I have brought him to you.” She opened her eyes and good old professor Filby was standing in front of her. He asked if he could pray for her and she said yes. They ended up spending time chatting after the service and they are happily married today. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt she told him what she had heard that day. My guess is it came a while down the road after she KNEW it was indeed the Lord.

What’s different about their story? Well I would venture that she really heard from God and 90% of the young people running around in church, bible college and even out in the world haven’t. They think they have and they want to hear from God on the subject, but their own eagerness for a relationship has gotten in the way of their ability to truly hear the voice of God.

I’m guilty of it. I can convince myself of a lot. In college I found myself sharing my desire to pursue a couple young ladies because I thought God was opening the door. In reality my own lust, selfishness and lack of intimacy in my own relationship with the Lord is what was driving those conversations. By Gods infinite grace, none of the girls were interested and I thank him for that daily.

Through my experience and what I observe in the church today I’ve come to discover a few things. First, most people in the church today are lacking true intimacy in their relationship with the Lord. Not that I have it figured out by any means, but that certainly was my problem in college and has continued to be in the area of relationships to this day. Until we understand what a true relationship with the Lord is we will continue to mistake our own longings and our own desires as the voice of God.

Our priorities are all out of whack. I spoke with some of the local Bible College students the other day about where our focus lies in the church. We might say we’re joining the college group or attending the bible college to “sit at the Lords feet” but I’d venture to say that is not priority number one for most people. Merely sitting in the campus coffee shop supports this. Many have good intentions and indeed desire that relationship with their heavenly Father but it seems so few understand the meaning true intimacy. Myself included.

Secondly, we are too concerned with having a fanciful, fairytale love story that we again over think and over spiritualize, acting on impulse rather than Gods divine providence. We hear the story of the young pastor who on graduation day declared to his now wife, “God told me you are the one,” and we want that so we try to make it happen. I heard recently that one young lady from the local bible College had three young men offer her that in a weeks time. Props to her because she didn’t buy any of it. In fact she shared with these young men, “surely God must be confused then because I keep hearing that.” I can only imagine the defeat and anguish these young men felt but if they didn’t learn their lesson I’m sure they can find another unsuspecting young women to prey on with better results.

A friend of mine recently shared from the female world that many of her friends are much more concerned with the love story than the relationship. “Oh wouldn’t it just be SO amazing if it worked out?” She offered that at this point in her life, she just wants to meet a godly man and is less concerned with how that happens.

I share her sentiment; at 24 I’m just looking for a relationship. I could care less if the story is fanciful and exciting. I certainly haven’t always been there and my own eagerness for a God written love story has allowed me to convince myself that I’m hearing from the Lord when clearly I have not. The lack of fruit from any of those attempts at relationships is evidence of this.

Read the bible. Every word of it is God inspired and there are plenty of not so exciting stories in there. Just because it’s a love story doesn’t mean its going to be a fairytale. In fact that opens up another can of worms regarding our idea of a fairytale love story. Books, TV and Hollywood have painted a picture of what ever after really means and we compare Gods design of a love story to that. Seldom do they look the same. Ruth and Boaz ring a bell? A very romantic story but a threshing floor and a pile of grain somehow doesn’t measure up to a weekend trip to Tahiti as seen on The Bachelor.

I offer, and I’m as guilty as the next, that our own eagerness and desire for a relationship, coupled with our lack of true intimacy with the Lord, has allowed the devil to find his way into places he shouldn’t and never was meant to be. The church tells us “You’ll just know.” And we, enamored by lust and emotion, mistake our own longing as the voice of God. How incredibly sad that we can take sin and convince ourselves that it is the voice of God.

That proves that we are lacking in our own personal relationships with the Lord. So start there. Dive into the word. Ask God to open your eyes and heart in new and truthful ways. You might offer that you study the bible day in and day out and are not seeing any fruit. Are you doing homework when you open the Bible or are you taking time to spend one on one with your savior learning to hear His voice. Either way, it takes time.

Then when that voice comes along, test it. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says “Test everything and hold on to what is good.” If it truly is the voice of the Lord, He’s not going to let her get away. God will lovingly lead you as you submit to His will and His voice, and help you as you learn to lovingly lead the woman He has for you.